Douglas Preston - Reliquary

There was a faint, lengthy squawking that Margo assumed must be Mizner.

“Just subdue and arrest the—” Horlocker began.

More faint squawking.

“Five hundred ? From underground? Look, Mizner, don’t give me this shit. Why aren’t they on the buses?”

Horlocker stopped again to listen. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Pendergast sitting on the edge of a table, leaning against a mobile radio unit, seemingly engrossed in an issue of the Policeman’ s Gazette.

“Riot control, tear gas, I don’t give a rat’s ass how you do it… marchers? What do you mean, they’re fighting with the marchers ?” He lowered the phone, looked at it as if in disbelief, then raised it to his other ear. “No, for Chrissakes, don’t use gas anywhere near the marchers. Look, we got most of the Twentieth and Twenty-second underground, the Thirty-first is manning the checkpoints, Uptown is laid wide open as a… no, forget it, tell Perillo I want a wildfire meeting with all the deputy chiefs in five minutes. Bring in staff from the outer boroughs, off duty, meter cops, whatever. We need more manpower applied to that spot, you hear me?”

He punched the phone angrily and grabbed at another on the desk in front of him. “Curtis, get the Governor’s office on the phone. The evac went south, and some of the underground homeless we were clearing from the area around the Park are rioting. They’ve run straight into that big march on Central Park South. We’ll have to call in the Guard. Then contact Masters, we’re going to need a Tactical helicopter, just in case. Have him get the assault vehicles from the Lexington Avenue armory. No, forget that, they may not be able to make it through. Contact the Park substation instead. I’ll call the Mayor myself.”

He hung up the phone, more slowly this time. A single bead of sweat was making its slow traverse down a forehead that had gone from red to gray in a matter of moments. Horlocker looked around the command center, seemingly blind to the scurrying cops, the transmitters crackling on countless bands. To Margo, he looked like a man whose entire world had suddenly imploded.

Pendergast carefully folded the Gazette and placed it on the table beside him. Then he leaned forward, smoothing his pale blond hair with the fingers of his right hand.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, almost casually.

Uh-oh, Margo thought.

Pendergast glided forward until he stood directly in front of the Chief. “I’ve been thinking that this situation is simply too dangerous to leave in the hands of one man.”

Horlocker closed his eyes for a minute. Then, as if making a tremendous effort, he raised them to Pendergast’s placid face.

“Just what the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

“We’re relying on Squire Waxie to manually shut the Reservoir valves and stop the drainage process.”

“So?”

Pendergast put a finger to his lip, as if he was about to whisper a secret. “Not to be indelicate about this, but Captain Waxie has not proven himself to be—well, the most reliable of errand boys. If he fails, the catastrophe will be complete. The Mbwun lilies will be shunted through the Astor Tunnels and out to the open sea. Once exposed to salinity, the reovirus will be unleashed. It could alter the ecology of the oceans significantly.”

“More than that,” Margo heard herself blurt. “It could insert itself into the food chain, and from there…” She fell silent.

“I’ve heard this story before,” Horlocker said. “It doesn’t get any better the second time around. What’s your point?”

“What we in the Bureau call a redundant solution,” Pendergast said.

Horlocker opened his mouth to speak just as a uniformed officer signaled from a comm desk. “Captain Waxie for you, sir. I’ll patch him through on the open line.”

Horlocker picked up the phone again. “Waxie, what’s your status?” He stopped to listen. “Speak up, I can’t hear you. The what ? What do you mean, you’re not sure? Well, take care of it, goddammit! Look, put Duffy on. Waxie, you hear me? You’re breaking up. Waxie? Waxie !”

He slammed the phone into its cradle with a shattering crash. “Get Waxie back on the horn!” he yelled.

“May I continue?” Pendergast asked. “If what I just heard is any indication, time is short. So I’ll be brief. If Waxie fails and the Reservoir is drained, we must have a backup plan in place to prevent the plants from escaping into the Hudson.”

“How the hell are we going to do that?” D’Agosta asked. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. The Reservoir is scheduled to dump in just over two hours.”

“Can we just stop the plants from escaping somehow?” Margo asked. “Place filters over the exit pipes, or something?”

“An interesting thought, Dr. Green,” Pendergast said, glancing toward her with his pale eyes. He paused briefly. “I’d imagine that 5-micron filters would be sufficient. But where would we find them manufactured to the proper dimensions? And what about the tolerances required to withstand the tremendous water pressure? And how could we be certain we had located every exit?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid the only solution that time allows is to seal the exits from the Astor Tunnels with high explosive. I’ve studied the maps. A dozen charges of C-4, accurately placed, should be sufficient.”

Horlocker swiveled himself toward Pendergast. “You’re crazy,” he said matter-of-factly.

There was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the center, and Margo looked over to see a group of policemen half running, half stumbling in from the concourse beyond. Their uniforms were disheveled and muddy, and one of the officers had a nasty cut on his forehead. In their midst, struggling wildly, was an incredibly dirty man wearing a ragged corduroy suit. His long gray hair was matted and streaked with dirt and blood. A large turquoise, necklace hung from his neck, and a heavily stained beard hung down to his handcuffed wrists.

“We got the ringleader!” one of the cops panted as they tugged the struggling man toward the Chief.

D’Agosta stared incredulously. “It’s Mephisto!” he cried.

“Oh?” Horlocker said sarcastically. “A friend of yours?”

“Merely a social acquaintance,” Pendergast replied.

Margo watched as the man named Mephisto stared from D’Agosta to Pendergast. Suddenly, the piercing eyes flooded with recognition, and his face turned dark.

“You!” he hissed. “ Whitey ! You were spies. Traitors! Pigs!” He struggled with a sudden, terrible strength, breaking free of his captors for a moment only to be tackled to the floor and pinned again. He grappled and strained, raising his manacled hands. “Judas!” he spat in Pendergast’s direction.

“Frigging lunatic,” Horlocker said, looking toward the group wrestling on the tiled floor.

“Hardly,” Pendergast replied. “Would you act any differently if somebody had just gassed you and driven you out of your home?”

Mephisto lunged again.

“Hold him, for Chrissakes,” Horlocker snapped, stepping out of reach. Then he turned back to Pendergast. “Now, let me see if I understand this,” he said with insulting sweetness, the parody of a father humoring a foolish son. “You want to blow up the Astor Tunnels. Do I have it right?”

“Not the tunnels so much as the exits from the tunnels,” Pendergast replied, oblivious to the sarcasm. “It is critical that we stop any water draining from the Reservoir from reaching the open ocean. But perhaps we can accomplish both ends: cleanse the Astor Tunnels of their inhabitants while preventing the reovirus from escaping. All we have to do is hold the water for forty-eight hours and let the herbicide do its work.”